Page 13 of In Rising Tides

It was unbroken, as if the chain had merely slipped over her head instead of being ripped from her.

Wilder stroked a thumb over it, feeling the grooves of the swirling shell. A rush of comfort washed over him, warming the sapphire in his hand.

It was an offering of goodwill from the sea. Proof of life of his beloved.

Wilder took it as good fortune for himself, not daring to think what it might mean for her.

But it had to be a good thing, right? Something of hers to hold on to.

What would she have from him?

“I will come for you,” he whispered and could have sworn the shell vibrated under his touch. “I will come for you.”

His heart pounded in time with the crashing waves against the beach. He prayed that the sea would swallow his words and carry them to her ears.

Lyra wanted to argue. She wanted to rage against the chains both on her wrists and the ones that wound around her heart with each second they neared Atlantis.

That could not have been right. She didn’t want the throne. She didn’t want that kind of responsibility.

Lyra had come back for one reason and one reason only—she had a bargain to uphold.

“What is it?” Drystan asked, surveying her sidelong as he navigated them through large porous rocks and shipwreck debris.

“Nothing,” Lyra said, shaking her head. “I’m still adjusting.”

There was no way she would tell him her true plans here.

Aside from breaking the tithe, she wanted to make his life as miserable as possible. It was no less than he deserved.

She took a deep breath, letting the saltwater soothe the ache and burn along her sides.

Drystan had been right about that part. She was of the sea, and it welcomed her back.

It hadn’t been a jovial greeting, yet it was a reception all the same. The water warmed, and the scent became staggering as it shifted to something akin to rot.

Shadows darted just out of Lyra’s line of sight.

The constant thrum of the current was loud, making it impossible for her to hear anything that wasn’t right beside her now.

Everything became too much.

It was too loud, too overwhelming, too oppressive.

A crawling sensation erupted along her flesh as a shiver walked its way down her spine.

Drystan ripped her to a stop and wrenched her behind a boulder large enough to conceal them both twice over. She opened her mouth to object, but he pressed a finger to his lips.

“Pay attention,” he hissed against the side of her head.

A reptilian beast emerged from the bow of a rotting ship, its massive head swinging side to side before it retreated into the shadows. Each of its scales was the size of her palm.

It appeared more like a dragon than a fish.

A predator from a world that no longer existed.

They had to be at the pinnacle of the food chain because what could keep their population in check?

The storieswere trueabout their existence.